MANAGING SECURITY CREDENTIALS FOR SCALED-OUT SERVICES

Embodiments are directed to establishing separate security identities for a shared service and shared service instances, and to managing shared and service instance credentials. In one scenario, a computer system establishes a shared credential for a shared service that includes multiple shared service instances, where the shared credential uniquely identifies the shared service. The computer system establishes a service instance credential for each shared service instance that uniquely identifies each shared service instance and maintains a relationship between the service instance and the shared service. The relationship provides service instance access to the shared credentials as the shared credentials are updated over time. Then, upon determining that the shared credentials have been updated and are no longer valid, the shared service instance accesses the updated shared credentials using the established relationship.